Serendipity

Serendipity was my job. And it was a very lucrative one.

It was a neat setup. You're going to get whatever you want in life anyway,
or at least what's best for you. So when they wanted to find us, they
set up the best life possible and waited for us to wander into it. Worked
pretty well, except for those who really needed a life of hardship and
privation to build their character. We all got that to some extent, but
for the most part we had comfortable lives.

If we wanted to take a job, get some excitement, we could. Which was why I
was where I was, on some godforsaken colony world without even an FTL
linkup.

It was a little disconcerting, for a silver-spoon child like myself, to
spend months in the company of frontier types who couldn't even tell the
difference between an appetizer and an aperitif. Not that they'd ever
experienced either.

"So how long until you think my ship can be repaired?" I asked Pirga at
dinner one night, after a fruitless attempt to explain the difference to
him.

He grunted. "Y'ask me, it'd be easier ta smelt the whole thing down and
build it over."

However counter-intuitive it would have seemed to me even a year ago, I'd
grown to like them all immensely. Their candor and frankness was
refreshing, after a lifetime spent in an environment where knives were
hidden in every sleeve. (Not that I'd ever run afoul of any, of course.)

I was about to explain to him about how the more sophisticated components
would no doubt suffer from the treatment, when Pirga's son Lians rushed in.
"Pa! Pa! There's 'nether ship down!"

There wasn't much left of the pilot when we got there. Obviously he wasn't
one of my colleagues. "Not even enough to boil down," Pirga said,
disappointed. His colony was apparently given to "recycling" their members
that didn't die of anything toxic.

"Most of it looks pretty good, though. You came down rearways and crashed
yer engines 'n stuff. This guy came in nose-first and ruined cockpit 'n
'puter, but his engines 're fine."

I nodded, unsurprised. "I expect you'll be able to finish the repairs on
my ship with the remains of this one," I said.

Pirga looked at me, first with startlement, and then sudden fear.

"I'd hate to be stuck wi'you out in the wild," he said finally.

I nodded. It would be time to leave, soon. Pirga was starting to realize
how little my "joss" cared for the fate of anyone besides myself. It
wouldn't take long for talk to spread.

Yes, we took these jobs occasionally. Just long enough to remember how
alone we really were, without our own kind.